Gezicht op gebouwen c. 1828 - 1897

Curator: Here we have Adrianus Eversen’s, "Gezicht op gebouwen," or "View of Buildings", created sometime between 1828 and 1897 using pencil on paper. What strikes you first about this cityscape sketch? Editor: The fragility of it all. The faintest of lines suggests an entire urban landscape, skeletal and barely there, like a half-remembered dream of a city. Curator: The use of pencil on paper, a readily available and relatively inexpensive medium, speaks to its purpose perhaps as a preparatory sketch, a working drawing rather than a finished piece. Editor: But that's precisely what makes it compelling! These bare bones of architecture spark an almost archetypal image of "city," distilled down to its most fundamental geometric forms. The rooftop symbols pointing...somewhere, like little arrows in the architecture of dreaming. Curator: Note, however, that the artist likely sourced inexpensive, commercially produced paper for the sketch, reflecting an art market increasingly tied to industrial processes. Was he thinking of his own labour? And the relationship between drawing and commodity in this budding capitalist era? Editor: Well, regardless, those tentative lines offer insight into an underlying feeling; they're like a psychogeographic exploration before that was even a term. Curator: Interesting…considering the burgeoning industrial landscape, one might argue those skeletal structures represent the fleeting nature of material production. This drawing serves as a material document and a study in line and form. Editor: And those lines also outline something older, more enduring. A subconscious mapping of collective memories tied to shelter, community, and the ever-reaching human aspiration to build. It captures the spirit, don't you think? Curator: Well, even an incomplete sketch can point us toward understanding shifts in material and culture and how economic forces can also define art production, can't they? Editor: Perhaps, perhaps, and as that door creaks open, a light shines through onto hidden symbols, a deeper visual grammar, a secret city etched on paper!